Month: July 2016

An Alternative Reading of the Fall

faithfictionfatherhood 2 Comments

Here’s how, in my own semi-irreverent way, I would summarize the traditional, mainstream story of Adam and Eve’s Fall in the Garden of Eden:

“So you’ve got the first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve[1], and they live together in paradise, and everything’s cool. God gives them one command. One! ‘Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.’ And God tells them, ‘don’t do it or you’ll die.’ And then comes along a serpent-thing. Maybe it’s a lizard, I don’t know; it’s kind of snake-like but it has legs. Either way, the serpent’s really the devil in disguise. The serpent tells Eve that it’s just fine if she eats the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and she won’t die. It tells her that, if she eats, she’ll be like God because she’ll know good from evil. So she eats some and gives some to Adam. And now they’ve disobeyed God, and that’s the first sin, and everything kind of sucks after that because they messed up. And so, we need Jesus.”

There are a few logical problems with this interpretation, common though it is.

First, while Adam and Eve do disobey a command from God, they cannot be held responsible for this. For the story to make any sense whatsoever, Adam and Eve must be without the knowledge of good and evil before they eat the fruit—otherwise, what’s the point in the first place? But, if they do not understand good and evil when they disobey God, they don’t understand that what they’re doing is wrong. No credible system of justice holds people culpable when they did not understand that what they were doing was wrong and intended to do wrong.

So, if eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the sin that caused the Fall, God has acted arbitrarily in declaring mankind to have fallen. I don’t believe that our God does anything arbitrarily. This by itself breaks the traditional interpretation.

It is undeniably true that Adam and Eve intentionally disobeyed God. I am not disputing that. But if they did not understand that disobeying God was wrong, we need to derive a different meaning from the story.

There is a second problem. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, and God did not want Adam and Eve to have knowledge of good and evil, why put the freaking tree in the Garden? I think that we have to assume that God is purposeful in God’s actions and that the tree is there for a reason.

It would not be sufficient of me to criticize the traditional reading of the Fall so significantly without offering an alternative explanation. I suggest that we read the story of Adam and Eve a little more mythologically[2]—as expressing a fundamental truth about the nature of existence in a way that shows rather than tells. In other words, let’s get metaphysical.

The scriptural passages make clear that Adam and Eve have free will—they have the ability to choose their actions without determinism from God. Otherwise, there is no need for God to give them a command and warning about the tree. While they cannot be held accountable for their actions prior to eating from the tree, it is nevertheless their intentional choice to disobey God.

It is safe to say, then, that the existence of Adam and Eve’s free will leads to their disobedience of and separation from God as an inevitable consequence—without having to bring moral judgment into the interpretation. That’s a profound assertion—free will is a fundamental aspect of God’s creation of humanity, but one that brings a set of problems with it.

If God’s goal for humanity is relationship, as I believe that it is, God must (at least under the laws of reality as we understand them; one can’t ever really say must of God in any truly absolute meaning) give humans free will, because a meaningful relationship requires that both parties to the relationship willingly agree to be in relationship with one another. But with free will, there’s a possibility that one party will choose not to enter into relationship. On the same lines, this means that humans may choose not to be righteous and obedient to God.

How can the lack of righteousness created by the gift of free will be resolved? This, I think, is one of the fundamental problem Christianity answers—through the grace, salvation and guidance of Jesus Christ, humanity may be both free and good.

Under this reading, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not a catalyst, it is a symbol. If God’s command and Adam and Eve’s subsequent disobedience is indicative of the “problem” caused by free will, then the eating of the fruit is symbolic of the fact that man and woman have a knowledge of good and evil and thus are responsible for the use of their will. In order to be able to choose to be good, they must have this knowledge; now they need a guide in the ways of righteousness. Having this knowledge also means that they are now culpable for their evil; now they need a savior to forgive their trespasses as they struggle to learn to be righteous. Both of these needs are fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, and this reading of the Fall sets us up to look for our savior almost from the moment of creation.

The writer of the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus is the Word, and the Word was with God at the creation and was God. When we look back to the Fall with that knowledge in mind, now we see a long-term plan from God to create beings that are free and independent of God (and thus capable of meaningful relationship with God) and giving them a path to also be righteous of their own volition.

Along with this reading—to bring things into Wesleyan perspective—we might call the fundamental problem caused by the existence of free will “original sin,” that condition in which we will inevitably separate ourselves from God and creation in an effort to satisfy only ourselves. Having young children in my home, it does occur to me that, upon discovery of the existence of the will, that seems to be the path that naturally follows. “Prevenient grace,” then, would be that grace of God that goes before us and allows us to see beyond our own selfish desires enough to do good and to seek after God.

My favorite theologians, Paul Tillich among them, advise that we ought not to define sin as particular acts, but instead of the condition of separation from God, self and others that occurs because of certain acts. I think that my alternative reading of the Fall lends itself to that definition, which also fits well with what I called in a previous post the “positive morality” of Jesus—sin is what results when we fall short of the Great Commandment. This means that we must look to both intent and result of any act to determine whether it is sinful or not—we cannot simply categorize sin without context.

As I’m sure I’ll discuss in future posts, I think that the reading of the Fall that I’ve provided gives us more logical and more useful understanding of our place in the universe and the nature of sin than the traditional view. What do you think?

———————————————————————

[1] I said mainstream. I’m aware of all the Lilith legendry about her being the first wife of Adam, etc. While a fascinating story, it was probably generated by early attempts to syncretize the two accounts of humanity’s creation (Gen 1:26-27 and Gen 2:7, 18-25). I’m willing to chalk up the two accounts to sloppy editing, but I can’t deny the possibility that some theological insight is meant by the existence of the two differing accounts.

[2] The “curses” given by God either fit into a “traditional” mythological role—a pre-scientific attempt to explain why certain things are the way they are (why snakes have no legs, why we have to work for our food, why childbirth hurts so damn much, etc.), or a theological role—childbirth is a symbol that real creation sometimes requires pain and sacrifice, the requirement to work the land tests our choices when we exist in a world of limited resources, etc.

Avar Narn

faithfictionfatherhood Leave a comment

Avar Narn Hand-drawn B&W Complete.png

As most aspiring fantasy writers do, I think, I have had for over a decade a fantasy world being built inside my head. For more than a decade, I’ve called that world Avar Narn.

There have been major changes and reworkings to the world over time, and it is currently under what I hope is its last set of major revisions before I’m content enough (emphasis on enough–I’ve discovered, if only recently, that if I wait for it to be perfect it will never go anywhere) to start writing seriously within the setting for publication. In fact, I hope to soon finish editing on a few short stories set within the Avar that will be posted to the blog.

Avar Narn is an eclectic place, influenced as it is by a wide range of authors. It’s neither Tolkien nor Martin, but the influence of both are undeniable. There’s definitely a streak of Miéville (one of my favorites for so many reasons) and, I think, some tone if not theme borrowed (stolen, really) from Mark Smylie’s Artesia graphic novels and setting. Undoubtedly, my long experience with various roleplaying game settings has formed some of my opinions about what makes a good fantasy setting. I could go on, but it’s perhaps best to let it stand on its own rather than to list a bunch of people whose works I can strive for but about whom I make no pretentious affectation of emulating.

Like Tolkien and Lewis, my faith is an important factor in the design of the world. Unlike those fine gentlemen, I prefer my theological assertions to be a bit less heavy-handed. I do not want to use the Biblical narratives as the core of my plots, nor do I want my works to come across as a form of thinly-veiled apologetics. My hope is that the ways my faith influences my worldview will come out in the types of stories I tell and the style in which I tell them–speaking to the human condition as I understand it without making the story an argument of faith.

I have lofty goals, as fantasy writers should; it will be for readers to judge how well I achieve those goals. Foremost must be the telling of great stories that delight and inspire the reader to think about life and existence. Along with this is the desire to participate in that ephemeral but satisfying practice of mythopoeia.

I am not an artist by any means, although my latest pursuits in world-building have given me the desire to become one. I’ve acquired a small Wacom tablet, some decent drawing pencils, an artist’s sketchbook, a subscription to an online drawing class and several instructional books. As my first significant effort, I’ve created the above hand-drawn map of the area of Avar Narn where most of my stories for the foreseeable future will take place. It’s not bad as a first attempt, though it could be much better and I learned a lot while doing it.

I’ll likely be posting more about Avar Narn soon, along with the promised short stories. For now though, I hope this map takes you back to your childhood, looking at the maps in the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, or those of other fantasy stories, in wonder and excitement. It does me.

Toward a Positive Morality

faithfictionfatherhood 2 Comments

When K gives Bess a bath, they blare music and sing along. A great time is had by all, I’m sure. Bess is a quick study of melody if not of words and her little voice combines with K’s in a pleasing microcosm of happy home life.

Cute as it is, I don’t really care for the music they listen to. Most of it is old Sunday School songs that K and I heard as kids (and K actually remembered). After bath time, recently, K asked me why I had that look on my face. She knows I’m not a big fan of Christian “genre” music and knew what was going on before she asked, I think.

“I don’t like the music,” I say.

“What’s the matter with it?” she asks.

“I don’t think it’s good theology.”

“What’s the problem.”

“It’s too simplistic.”

“They’re kid’s songs!” she exclaims.

The one that really got me was the “Ten Commandments Song,” and not just because it is still infuriatingly running through my head—“Number One, we’ve just begun; God should be first in your life…” If you keep singing this to yourself, you’re probably a child of the eighties.

I’m not a big fan of the Ten Commandments. Gasp if you must, but I’m just not. I don’t think that they really have much of a place in Christian morality. Gasp again, this time so others turn to look at you.

That’s because the Ten Commandments, like most of the Old Testament law, enforce a negative morality—“thou shalt not.” There are several problems with this.

First, negative morality gives us ample ammunition to infringe upon the warning that we “judge not, lest [we] be judged.” Matthew 7:1. It’s just so tempting to say, “But he did!” when comparing someone’s actions to one of the Big Ten.

Second, negative morality does not allow us to fulfill our calling to follow after Jesus. Consider the Rich Young Ruler episode (Mark 10:17-27; Matthew 19:16-22; Luke 18:18-23). The Rich Young Ruler has followed the commandments all of his life, and Jesus quite readily tells him that there’s still more he lacks.

Negative morality is legalistic. Trust me; I’m a lawyer. It allows one to say, “I have avoided doing those things; I have fulfilled my obligation.” Jesus continually confronts the Pharisees about this problem, largely because the Pharisees hoped to reclaim righteousness through jurisprudence and adherence to the letter of the law. Compare with Jesus’ commands, which seem to be largely positively framed: “forgive those who trespass against you” (Matthew 6:9-13); “give to him that asks of you” (Matthew 5:38-42); “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44-46); “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:46-48).

This is a point made by E. Stanley Jones in The Christ of the Mount, which I’ve referred to before. Jones argues that, unlike negative morality that allows us to say, “I’ve done (or haven’t done) that, box checked,” the positive morality of Jesus always calls us to do more. “Love your neighbor as yourself” has no resting place—you must always ask what more one can do to love your neighbor. Negative morality tells us not to get worse; positive morality calls us to be better. It brings the spirit of the law to the apex and allows the letter of the law to subside in importance.

There is a good place for negative definitions of behavior—the legal system. Negative commandments allow us to offer societal protection against evils while preserving the greatest amount of freedom in the individual—“if it doesn’t say I can’t do that, then I can.” Excellent for the needs of society to order itself, but not great for those on a journey of sanctification.

Third, negative morality is not terribly responsive to our moral needs. “Thou shalt not kill,” doesn’t help us with questions like, “Is it permissible to kill one person to protect ten from him?” The commandment against bearing false witness is even flatly contradicted in the Old Testament, or at least an exception is made. Rahab, a prostitute (or perhaps innkeeper depending upon how misogynistic you like your translation) hides the Israelite spies in Jericho, lying to the authorities about the presence of the Hebrews in her home. For this lying, she is rewarded and blessed.

We live in a fallen world, so we need moral guidance that allows us to understand and work morally within that world. Black and white commandments of “thou shalt not” do not make room for the myriad potential factors and circumstances that influence any particular moral choice. Our intuition tells us that there’s a difference between killing someone for profit and a soldier killing to protect the lives of his brothers-in-arms.[1]

The positive commandments of Jesus—to “love your neighbor as yourself” is at once imminently simple and infinitely complex and responsive to circumstance. We must ask ourselves, “What does it mean to most love my neighbor in this circumstance? What does it mean to love two neighbors who are in conflict with one another?” Etc.

Fourth—and this is what got me thinking about this in the first place—positive morality is a, well, more positive formulation of behavior for instructing young ones. Isn’t it far better to say, “It hurt little Jimmy when you did that; what would be a way to love him better next time?” than to say, “That’s bad; we don’t hit,” which carries with it the connotation of “you’re bad and defined by that one action.” Am I overthinking this? Perhaps? Is it hippy-dippy (to use the term for the first time in my life)? Definitely. But would it have a positive impact on children’s behavioral development? What little knowledge I have on the subject seems to indicate yes.

I’m fairly well convinced that it’s worth it to start thinking about how we can be better rather than focusing on how we’ve messed up—to avoid hurting others by focusing on our relationships with them rather than sterile commands. What do you think?

—————————————————————————-

[1] A few caveats here. First, one must admit that, being subject to a fallen world, our intuitions may not always be trustworthy. Nevertheless, I believe in C.S. Lewis’s arguments about “natural law” and the existence of conscience as a signpost to God. Additionally, when we talk about comparative morality—“X is okay in this kind of situation but not this”—we open ourselves up to far more ambiguity than we can handle in this post. Still, that gives a good reason for the theological point that we treat all sin as equal—we’re incapable of knowing with certainty how to rank one sin against another, so let’s not fool ourselves into thinking we can.

Homecoming

faithfictionfatherhood 1 Comment

It is eleven-thirty on a Wednesday morning. I am at home, having gone to work earlier today even than this morning person cares to. My career obligations at a satisfactory point to wait until tomorrow, I sit at the chair in front of my computer, an old piece inherited by K and made from quality wood worn smooth by hands running across it, arms resting upon it and socked feet perched upon its lower supports, the padding where I sit long collapsed to a thin suggestion of cushion. It strikes me vaguely as a chair-shaped worry stone, smoothed by time and comforting to the touch. But that’s a matter of my perception more than the state of the chair itself.

Today, Abe and Bess embarked on their first visitation with bio-mom since their removal. A case worker from CPS kindly picked them up while K was at home and I was working and will be returning with them soon. So I sit here, typing to escape from worrying about what happens next.

Tomorrow, they will have been with us for five weeks. Time they’ve spent getting settled in, coming to trust us, starting to feel safe. On the one hand, I cannot imagine what their mother has been through this past month, walking around with two empty spaces following her where children had been. She should get to see the kids, and they should get to see her. K and I long before this process began decided we would support visitation with biological family during and even after the process of fostering and adopting, so long as it’s healthy for the kids.

As with so many things we think about intellectually and completely fail to really grasp until we’re in the moment, my thoughts are selfishly not on the good that will come from the meeting with bio-mom, the potential establishment of some sense of continuity and the reduction in long-term trauma that can come from the maintenance of relationships where appropriate, but instead about where my relationships will be when the kids return. The work K and I have done in loving and caring for Abe and Bess, their development of love for us, will it all be dashed against the rocks of remembrance?

In my heart I know that it’s foolish to think so, that the belief that love is a zero-sum game we play with the world is a falsehood that leads so many of us astray. It is not K and I against bio-mom, and only our making it so will push things in that direction. The insecurity I feel now is about me, not about the kids. It’s about my selfish desire to claim ownership over the children. There’s no place for that here, and no good to come from it. So instead, as I write, I try to use these words to center myself, to remember what I’m about and who I want to be to these children. This post is my pseudo-self-therapy of sorts.

And it seems to have worked. I feel ready for the kids to come home, done worrying about what will happen and ready to constructively start thinking about what I can do to make things easiest for them when they arrive.

On God’s Government

faithfictionfatherhood Leave a comment

Within modern Christianity (and admittedly, throughout historic Christianity as well), there is a strong tendency to view the governmental style of God as a monarchy. I beg to differ.

Part of this is because we confuse discussion of “God’s sovereignty” with God’s rulership. Like most philosophical discussions, we need to be clear about our definitions. When we talk about God’s “sovereignty”, what we are really talking about is God’s power and control. For me, there’s not really any doubt about God’s omnipotence, but it’s not the same as governance or rulership. Governance combines power with goodness (or evil) and forbearance in the use of that power. Put simply, perhaps, governance is not just how much power there is, but also its source and when, where, why and how that power is used.

Human governments can at best be analogies to divine government, but let’s take a look at some human ideas on the subject to glean what we can before going to the scriptures and looking at God’s way of doing things.

Perhaps we should start with the purpose of governments. I think that we can agree that there is a valid reason for human governments. At the highest level, good governments provide for those things that individuals or small groups of people cannot. This includes collective defense from internal and external threats (i.e. military and police/judiciary power), logistics (the building of major infrastructure to support life and commerce, think of the U.S. Highway system for one) and the organization of collective resources to provide benefits to citizens, whether in general or targeted to specific needs (i.e. European subsidies to pay for university educations for those who qualify or pension programs, like Social Security). All of this is predicated upon the government having coercive power over its citizens to provide for the collective good—the ability to collect taxes, to punish those who break laws, to regulate certain aspects of daily life, etc.

Coercive power is either given (à la social contract theory from Socrates to Hobbes) or taken (as in dictatorships, old-school monarchies and other governments formed by groups with the power to use force to subjugate others). That coercive force must then be legitimized in some way because such legitimacy makes the use of the coercive power more palatable by those against whom it is used. The emperors of Rome and Japan claimed a semi-divine status that entitled them to rulership. Likewise, the medieval kings of Europe claimed a divine mandate to rule such that opposition to them was opposition to God (convenient, no?). In modern democracy we ascribe to the idea that coercive power exercised by a government ultimately answerable to the people best provides for the collective good.

In gross oversimplification, we can reduce human government to this three things: purpose, coercive power, and legitimacy. And we can see that God, too has all of these things—we have faith in God’s purpose in Creation, believe in God’s ultimate power over all things, and hold that, as the uncreated source of everything, God is as legitimate as it gets. So, under a human view of things, God seems perfectly entitled to have monarchical dominion over all things. I don’t argue with that, but I would point out that it doesn’t seem that God has that in mind. Let me explain.

First, some examples of God’s disavowal of human-style government. In broad strokes, much of the story of Judges and Chronicles is the litany of consequences that arise precisely because Israel asks for a human government in place of the (perhaps more-difficult-to-comprehend divine one). Jesus famously tells the Pharisees to “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21; c.f. Romans 13:1, where Paul makes a claim for a divine right of kings). In fact, the entirety of the gospel juxtaposes Jesus’s heralding of a supernal kingdom (and lack of concern for temporal politics) with the messianic expectation of the Jews and the fear of the Romans of a Jesus who comes to conquer and bring a worldly government. Jesus is crucified as “King of the Jews,” but—as far as we know—never takes steps to foment rebellion or create a movement for any rival governmental authority (unlike other messianic figures before and after him).

This circumstantial evidence points to a divine purpose in government that defies our worldly expectations and understandings. But, even better, God tells us of God’s ultimate plan very plainly in Jeremiah as God proclaims the New Covenant to be found in the Christ:

       31“Behold the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will
make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of
Judah,
       32“not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the
day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My
covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares
the Lord.
33“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
34“They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying ‘Know the Lord, ‘for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

This passage, I think, is what John Milton refers to in Book 3 of Paradise Lost when he declares that “God shall be All in All.”

What God describes in the above passage from Jeremiah is a future state where the law—righteousness—is so ingrained within humanity that there becomes no need for external coercive force to provide for the great collective good. Remember that the whole of the law hangs on Jesus’s commandments to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind…You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

At the fullest achievement of the “Kingdom of God”, there is no need for government. God’s purpose seems not to be a king to rule over us, but to sanctify us so that we need no rulership—so that each person is so good as to be able to act freely without harm to others and collectively for the good of all. Is this not the ultimate rectification of the Fall, the marriage within mankind of both righteousness and free will?

So, in a curious way that nevertheless makes complete sense given God’s sacrificial behavior toward us and God’s desire for relationship with us, God seeks to destroy the idea of government itself, to render it obsolete.

What does this really look like? Like much of the heavenly state, our own fallenness precludes our imagination from truly grasping the idea. The closest idea in human political thought, I think, is collectivist anarchism. Most people are familiar with anarchy as that 19th– and early 20th-century specter (alongside communism and socialism) threatening the Western way of doing things. The idea of anarchy is usually portrayed as utter chaos, lawlessness and the rule of power to the greatest possible extreme. In a practical sense, given the state of mankind, that’s a fair conception if we were to attempt to apply the practice of anarchy to any given group of people. But, that conception is far from what anarchist philosophers had in mind when developing their ideas—they looked to a time where people could be free of the coercive force of government and its many abuses—an issue that has not left us today.

The theorists of collectivist anarchism (like Mikhail Bakunin) sought a form of government (or lack of government) under which people were free to self-determine but collaborated to provide for the greater needs of humanity—sharing the resources of production and allowing the use of each person’s abilities in service to the whole while eschewing a need for private property and allowing for technological and logistic growth through principles of free self-organization rather than coercive force. Compare this with the early church as described in the Book of Acts!

Now, I’m a firm believer in Churchill’s sentiment that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” I have many complaints about the way democracy works, but these are more or less complaints about human nature itself, and I believe that democracy is the best system of government (though far from perfect) that humans have developed to date. Given the state of humanity at present, I have no belief that collectivist anarchism has any chance of ending in anything other than exploitation and misery.

But, I believe that one day, God will have led us to be sanctified such that we care for one another without the need for any form of government humans can create on this earth. What is important for me, here, is nothing about politics itself, but what it says about the nature of God and the extent of God’s love for Creation. There is an ineffable poetry to this scheme that I have no power to deny.

Thrown a Curve Ball

faithfictionfatherhood 2 Comments

K and I met with our DePelchin Clinician and our CPS Case Worker this past Wednesday afternoon. In general, the meeting went well, and it’s clear that the kids have settled in, feel safe and are happy. But our CPS worker threw us a curve ball–a doozy of a curve ball.

When this placement was first pitched to us, CPS had told DePelchin (and thus DePelchin had told us) one story about the reason the kids had been put in CPS custody. As part of that reason, we were told that the parents had reported that they had no family members available to care for the children. Since K and I are fostering with the goal of adoption, that seemed like a lower risk that the children go back to the parents or family than could be the case. When the children arrived later that day, we got a different story about the reason for the kids’ placement with CPS. That was annoying, but we had committed and weren’t about to change our minds about this placement simply because wires had gotten crossed somewhere.

On Wednesday, though, the CPS worker told us thata not one, but two family members were trying to go through the process to have the children placed with them. For the time being, this would be for interim care while the case proceeds through the court, but these family members would also have priority over us for adoption if parental rights were terminated.

These family members will have to go through all of the training, review, background check and other process that we had to in order to be cleared for possession of the kids. We have no idea of the likelihood that either could actually successfully complete the licensing process, but now we have a huge “what if?” placed in our way and the risk of us not being able to move all the way to adoption has greatly increased. To be sure, we had nothing close to a sure thing to begin with, but the new information shot into me fear, trepidation and anxiety. Understandably, I think, I’m angry and upset about CPS’s willingness and ability to share accurate information.

How much does this really change? Practically speaking, very little for the time being. I have fallen in love with Abe and Bess and I’m going to treat them as my own for as long as I can. What has changed, I suppose, is the realization of a certain conflict related to my own parental feelings. I now find myself unapologetically praying that the kids’s biological parents and family will fail so that they can be my forever family. Make no mistake, I am ready and willing to do whatever is necessary for the best interests of the kids, including letting them go if needs be, but I’m also pretty convinced that K and I are their best interest.

This potential struggle of conscience is something we’d anticipated early in this process, and I thought I’d come to terms with it quite some time back. What I didn’t anticipate was the fierce protectiveness and attachment of parenthood that settles deep in your heart and gut and latches on. This puts me in a weird possession, but perhaps one every parent feels–that unrepentant resolution that, if it’s the kids or someone/something else in conflict, it’s the kids every time. I’m not settled on the morality of this position, its righteousness or its place in my theology. Not by a long shot. For now, all I can do is describe how I feel as I sort through things.

Just Give Her the Damn Goldfish!

faithfictionfatherhood 5 Comments

I should have expected that having children would be a study in the human need for control. Our training for foster care on trust-based relational intervention (TBRI), which K and I found very helpful, made sure that we understood that there would be issues of control and authority in raising children (how could there not be?). That said, the intellectual knowledge of the thing and the experience are two things separated by a sometimes expansive gulf.

And so, it should have been no surprise that I’d have to spend some time thinking about my own need for control—both in the microcosm of my relationships with my children and in regards to life in general.

We are not allowed to withhold food from the children as a tool of compliance or discipline—nor do I think that doing so would be constructive, effective or beneficial. But that doesn’t stop food from sometimes being a struggle. There are very few things that we’ve discovered that Bess doesn’t like to eat, which is a blessing in and of itself. Sometimes though, she tells us that she wants one thing and then changes her mind, or gets served something we know she likes and she demands something else. This sort of a struggle is frustrating, to say the least.

There are some things we don’t make available to Bess—we don’t give her soda (she came to us already familiar with drinking straight from the can) and we very much limit her access to sweets (making me quite a hypocrite given my own sweet tooth, but it’s a hypocrisy I can live with). Otherwise, when she’s hungry we feed her and she gets to eat until she’s full. We serve her a lot of fruit, yogurt, milk, cheese and other things, and now that she’s settled in a bit more we’re trying to focus the offerings to be as healthy as possible. But sometimes, she just wants Goldfish, and nothing else will do.

At times like this, my initial instinct is to refuse her. I took the time to make her something else to eat, and she ought to eat that, dammit! Both the training we received and common sense dictate that this is not a fight worth having. So why do I feel a need to “win” that fight rather than avoiding it altogether?

Concerned about my own parenting skills, I started reflecting on this. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s about my own need for a semblance of control. Suddenly adding two kids to the picture has thrown everything in disarray—my schedule revolves around them and I have somehow to find the time to make a living and get some writing done. There’s not a great sense of control in my life overall at this juncture—though is there anything but an illusion of control in our lives ever, really?

I think that my desire to win arguments rather than focusing on the important stuff is about me trying to work out my own issues. Our parenting class instructor was wise to tell us to be on the lookout for exactly this sort of thing.

Perhaps above all, I tend to think of myself as someone who is more self-aware than most and, to a great degree, in control of himself to the extent that one can be. This experience has given me doubts about that self-conception.

At the end of the day, though, if I don’t learn from these experiences, I will certainly never have the kind of self-control I think that I do. So, I’m trying (“trying” being the operative word) to get over myself. If it’s not a matter of health and safety or some other significant issue, there’s not much reason for me to fight with Bess about it. Especially not so that I can feel I have some tiny amount of control in my life—there’s simply no there there (to borrow from Gertrude Stein).

When she wants to put on her own shoes, fine. When she wants things a certain way, we can do that. And when all she wants to eat is Goldfish—provided she’s generally still eating healthy—I’m just gonna give her the damn Goldfish. We’ll all be better for it, I think.

Creating an Appendix N

faithfictionfatherhood Leave a comment

“Appendix N” is an addendum to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Gamemaster’s Guide; it provides a list of “inspirational reading” according to Gary Gygax. For as long as I’ve heard of it, Appendix N has had a quasi-mystical status, as if manna from heaven. Now, I understand that Gygax is considered the progenitor of roleplaying games as we know them today, and I don’t intend to argue about that. However, I’d say that, “that’s just his opinion, man” to paraphrase The Big Lebowski.

In my humble opinion, everyone—and especially any aspiring writer like myself—ought to have her own Appendix N. There are several reasons: first, one will only rarely run short of book suggestions having prepared such a list; second, one may track one’s own writing influences through the list, using this both to help pitch works to publishers or agents and to find out where you might continue your study of great reads; third, it provides a shorthand to others—if you’re forming a writer’s group with others about whose writing you know little, seeing their Appendix N will probably give you some idea of both what their influences are and where their interests lie.

In that spirit, I’m going to start my own Appendix N here. I don’t have time now to completely fill it out, but I’ll be adding to it as I think of things that should be on here. If you’re so inclined, send me yours and let’s start a conversation!

My Appendix N (In Progress)

faithfictionfatherhood 1 Comment

In the vein of Gary Gygax’s “Appendix N”, here is my (non-exhaustive) recommended reading list, to be expanded upon both as I remember things to put on it and as I read new works. If you see something missing on here you think I should have read, let me know!

Fiction

Fantasy

Abercrombie, Joe
The Blade Itself

Butcher, Jim
The Dresden Files Series

Clarke, Susanna
Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Gaiman, Neil
American Gods

Martin, G.R.R.
A Song of Ice and Fire Series

MacDonald, George
Lilith
 Phantastes
 The Princess and the Goblin

Mieville, China
The City and the City
Embassytown
The Kraken (particularly after reading Lovecraft)
Perdido Street Station

Morris, William
The Wood Beyond the World

Pratchett, Terry
Anything and Everything

Rothfuss, Patrick
The Name of the Wind
 The Wise Man’s Fear

Sanderson, Brandon
The Mistborn Series

Sapkowski, Andrzej
The Witcher Series

Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Children of Hurin
The Hobbit
 The Lord of the Rings
 The Silmarillion

Horror

Blackwood, Algernon
“The Wendigo”

Brooks, Max
World War Z

Lovecraft, H.P.
The entire corpus, but I particularly prefer “The Dunwich Horror”
and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”

Machen, Arthur
“The Great God Pan”
“The White People”

Simmons, Dan
Summer of Night

Sci-Fi
Dick, Phillip K.
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”
Any of his other short stories and novellas

Herbert, Frank
Dune

Morgan, Richard K.
Altered Carbon

Scalzi, John
Old Man’s War

Simmons, Dan
            The Fall of Hyperion
            Hyperion

Stephenson, Neal
The Diamond Age
            Snow Crash

“Literature”

Alighieri, Dante
The Divine Comedy

Mallory, Sir Thomas
Le Morte D’Arthur

Milton, John
Paradise Lost
 Samson Agonistes

Sidney, Sir Phillip
Arcadia

Spenser, Edmund
The Faerie Queene
Shepheardes Calender

Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein

Poets

Behn, Aphra
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Carew, Thomas
Donne, John
Herbert, George
Howard, Henry, Earl of Surrey
Johnson, Ben
Petrarch
Shakespeare, William
Sidney, Sir Phillip
Whitman, Walt
Wordsworth, William
Wyatt, Thomas
Yeats, W.B.

Non-fiction

Milton, John

“Areopagetica”

Sidney, Sir Phillip
“The Defense of Poesy”

Tolkien, J.R.R.
“The Monsters and the Critics”

Great Courses (By the Great Course Company)
Buddhism by Prof. Malcolm David Eckel
Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer’s Craft by Prof. Brooks Landon
The Creative Thinker’s Toolkit by Prof. Gerard Puccio
Early Christianity: The Experience of the Divine by Prof. Luke Timothy Johnson
The Greatest Controversies of Early Christian History by Prof. Bart D. Ehrman
The History of Christian Theology by Prof. Phillip Cary
The Italian Renaissance by Prof. Kenneth R. Bartlett
Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication by Prof. Bart D. Ehrman
The Medieval World by Prof. Dorsey Armstrong
The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Rise of Nations by Prof. Andrew C. Fix
Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques by Prof. James Hynes

Theology
Bell, Rob
Love Wins

Barth, Karl
Systematic Theology

Chesterton, G.K.
Orthodoxy

Hamilton, Adam
Anything and Everything

Lewis, C. S.
Anything and Everything

MacDonald, George
Unspoken Sermons

Tillich, Paul
Systematic Theology

Wright, N.T.
Paul

Review: The Wendigo

faithfictionfatherhood Leave a comment

By Algernon Blackwood

On a whim last night, I decided to read this short story. I’d heard much about it, intended to read it for some time (it had been languishing in my Kindle app on my iPad for months) and finally got around to it.

Glad I did.

The story takes place on a hunting trip in the Canadian wilderness at the beginning of the 20th century and was the first to introduce the mythology of the wendigo into “mainstream” (read: white) culture.

It’s a horror story, a classic. Now, I can’t say that it was the type of story that had me hesitate to turn off the lights or drove me to chills and goosebumps. For me, its horror is of a more satisfying (and disturbing) type; existential horror about the nature of man and the universe. The wendigo is unsubtly a metaphor for the uncertainty of human life beyond civilization, for what happens when, as Nietzsche says, “the abyss looks back into you.” There’s a cold reminder in this story that, for some of us, our personalities and identities are stable only because of our circumstances—that in another place and time, or just a different situation, we might be surprised or terrified by who we might become. I’m not sure that there’s any horror so horrifying as the loss of selfhood.

There’s an illusion about writers of bygone eras. The archaic feel of the language they employ, however slight in reality, gives this feeling that they write with an aplomb illusive to the modern author. This is a trick, of course, and there are in fact scores of awful writers throughout history (just as there are today; check your bookstore).

Blackwood, however, writes in a style that provided noticeable pleasure to read. His words evoke both the beauty of the virgin wilderness and its intimidating expanse and uncaringness. We are made to feel small in the vast apathy of the universe. Judging by Lovecraft’s writings from about the same time, that feeling is par for the course in the genre.

To say much more is to intrude upon the story itself, to ask you to think more about the story than to experience it. That would be a shame.

Instead, I’ll simply state that I think it’s worth reading, especially since you can likely get it on Kindle for free. It takes an hour to an-hour-and-a-half to make the journey; I don’t think you’ll find it time wasted.